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 There, said Iselle, rising. Her chin came up.  Now you may be dismissed.
Tears were running down Betriz s face. Too shaken for words, Cazaril bowed
deeply and fled to his unquiet bed.
Cazaril found the Zangreeerily quiet the following day. After Dondo s death
the court had been alarmed, yes, but excited and given over to gossip and
whispering. Now even the whispering was stilled.
All who had no direct duties stayed away, and those who had inescapable tasks
went about them in a hurried, apprehensive silence.
Iselle and Betriz spent the day in Ias s tower, waiting upon Sara and Orico.
At dawn, Cazaril and the grim castle warder oversaw the cremation and burial
of the remains of the animals. For the rest of the day, Cazaril alternated
feeble attempts to attend to the mess on his desk with trudges down to the
temple hospital. Umegat lay unchanged, gray and rasping. After his second
visit, Cazaril stopped in at the temple itself and prayed, prostrate and
whispering, before all five altars in turn. If he was in truth infected with
this saint-disease, dammit, shouldn t it be good for something?
The gods do not grant miracles for our purposes, but for theirs
, Umegat had said. Yes? It seemed to Cazaril that this bargain ought to run
two ways. If people stopped lending the gods their wills by which to do
miracles, eh, what would the gods do about it then?
Well, the first thing to happen would be that I d drop dead
. There was that. Cazaril lay a long time before the altar of the Lady of
Spring, but here found himself mute, not even his lips moving. Abashed,
ashamed, despairing? But wordy or wordless, the gods returned him only the
same blank silence, five times over.
He was reminded of Palli s insistence that he not go about alone when,
slogging back up the hill, he passed dy Joal and another of dy Jironal s
retainers entering Jironal Palace. Dy Joal s hand curled on his sword hilt,
but he did not draw; with polite, wary nods, they walked wide about each
other.
Back in his office, Cazaril rubbed his aching brow and turned his thoughts to
Iselle s marriage.
Royse Bergon of Ibra, eh. The boy would do as well as any and better than
most, Cazaril supposed. But this turmoil in the court of Chalion made open
negotiations impossible to carry out; it would have to be a secret envoy, and
soon. Running down the list in his mind of courtiers capable of such a
diplomatic mission turned up none Cazaril would trust. Running down the much
shorter list of men he could trust turned up no experienced diplomats. Umegat
was laid low. The archdivine could not leave in secret.
Palli? March dy Palliar had the rank, at least, to demand Ibra s respect. He
tried to imagine honest Palli negotiating the subtleties of Iselle s marriage
contract with the Fox of Ibra, and groaned. Maybe . . .
maybe if Palli were sent with an extremely detailed and explicit list of
instructions . . . ?
Needs must drive
. He would broach it to Palli tomorrow.
CAZARIL PRAYED ON HIS KNEES BEFORE BED TO BEspared from the nightmare that had
recurred three nights running, where Dondo grew back to life size within his
swelling stomach and then, somehow dressed in his funeral robes and armed with
his sword, carved his way out. Perhaps the Lady heard his plea; at any rate,
he woke at dawn, his head and heart pounding, from a new nightmare. In this
one, Dondo somehow sucked Cazaril s soul into his own belly in his place, and
escaped to take over
Cazaril s body. And then embarked on a career of rapine in the women s
quarters while Cazaril, helpless to stop him, watched. To his dismay, as he
panted in the gray light and regained his grip on reality, Cazaril realized
his body was painfully aroused.
Page 169
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So, was
Dondo plunged into a lightless prison, sealed from sound, deprived of
sensation? Or did he ride along as the ultimate spy and voyeur? Cazaril had
not imagined making love to Be to any lady since this damned affliction had
been visited upon him; he imagined it now, a crowded quartet between the
sheets, and shuddered.
Briefly, Cazaril envisioned escaping by the window. He might squeeze his
shoulders through, and dive; the drop would be stupendous, the crunch at the
end . . . quick. Or with his knife, taken to wrists or throat or belly or all [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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